Join a choir!

Posted on December 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Choir, Choirs, Community, Fun, Joining, Languages, Learning, Music, Singing1 Comment

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I pinched this image off my friend on Facebook. I really agree with it.

About 14 years ago I decided to have singing lessons, I’d always wanted to sing, but I had a loud, untrained voice. I could deafen people but not entertain them so I thought learning to control my voice would help.

The lessons were good, they helped, and I went on to get a grade one in singing. But it was expensive. My friend kept saying come to the choir she was in. So I decided to go to the choir one week and the lessons on the following week. It was a great way of getting in to it. I realised I was enjoying learning new songs, and in different languages. Eventually I finished going for lessons because my tutor was going abroad. I stayed with the choir and am still with them. In the meantime I also joined another choir, and have performed with other groups. I have to say it has helped my mental well-being and boosted my confidence.

The choir I joined does not do auditions. You don’t need to be able to read music. You just come along and have a go. So like the picture says, join the choir, you’ll be glad you did!

The things you find in old books.

Posted on December 7, 2019December 7, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, before the Internet, Books, Closed libraries, Finding out, Illustration, Knowledge, Learning, Library, Memory, Thought, Train2 Comments

A train with pneumatic wheels that ran on the Paris underground? I didn’t know this existed, but it’s in the book my hubby is reading. It’s strange what you can find without looking at Google.

In the past you went to a library to find things out or research things, you took out the book and had your library card stamped, and a stamp put on the little form in the front of the book…..

Borrow for a week or two, then return so someone else could take it out. But beware, if you took it back late you could get fined! Books were sometimes sold off if they became out of date. Our bookshelves have some of these. The smell off a musty book, with slightly browning pages brings back memories of my school library, which for a comprehensive had a good big library, and our local, council library, with stern librarian keeping us all in order. Yellow or pale green walls and parquet flooring. Memories too of book covers with illustrations of dinosaurs or old fashioned atom symbols. I loved books on rocks and minerals and mystery stories. Craft books and origami. The library was the lace for ideas. Now many public libraries are gone, closed by politics not the Internet. Poorer people who can’t afford the Internet are kept away from knowledge. Sorry, getting political…..

Good memories…

The last leaf

Posted on November 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Chlorophyll, Creative writing, Forests, Leaf, Learning, Sci fi, Short story, Very short story, WoodLeave a comment

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The last leaf of the world fell in 2096,

No more trees, all dead, or burned by the wildfires. The last leaf came from a young sapling that had been planted into the soil two years before.

The forests had gone. Most of the grass had gone. Algae in the sea was dying. The only thing creating oxygen were the chlorophyll pumps. Miles high, miles wide, the stirrers ran 24 hours, day and night, month after month, year after year.

So now what…? Quantum jiggery pokery…. DNA, cloning. If the Earth could cool the planet could be reforested, but that would take decades….

Playing with ArtRage

Posted on November 15, 2019November 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage, Finding out, Learning, Looking for categories and tags, Muddled, Not understanding how, Using new tablet

I’m not used to my new ArtRage app on my tablet, neither am I used to my new tablet, everything is a bit mixed up. I’m mainly still doing things on my phone, but I’m slowly learning. I just found if I swipe the screen left I can find categories and tags, that’s useful..but when I tried again it wouldn’t do it?

Continue reading “Playing with ArtRage” →

Twins

Posted on November 12, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Brothers, Family, Fraternal, Ideas, Identical, Learning, Life, Science, Sisters, Thinking, Twins2 Comments

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People seem to think there are only identical twin. Born on usually the same day, unless the Labour is long and continues into the next day. They are from one fertilised egg which splits in two and goes on to form two babies (or in the case of other multiple births, more, for instance triplets). Identical twins might not fully seperate in the womb and can end up being conjoined, that is joined together. Sometimes at the head or the body. It is possible to operate and seperate them if they are not sharing organs. This is not always possible though.

There is another form of twin. Non identical. These are two seperate eggs that are fertilised at the same, or almost the same time. Non identical twins are called fraternal twins. They can be a boy and a girl, a boy and a boy or a girl and a girl. They are brothers and sisters born at the same time, but not exact copies. As they grow up their differences become more apparent. They may be bought up wearing the same clothes…. But they are not necessarily the same shape or size. As with identical twins they may have similar interests or completely different ones.

Life can be interesting, a lot of how we live is often influenced by how we are bought up, not just from our genes. It’s the old nurture verses nature argument.

Not a Zebra

Posted on November 12, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Drawing app, Fun, Horse, Learning, Life, Pattern, Sketching, ZebraLeave a comment

Just a doodle using Sketcher, a new app I’m trying out. The app is quite easy to use, with lots of different settings which I am just trying to work my way around. I don’t know how to get it off the diamond pattern so I decided to use it as a texture on this.

Trying to paint Clooney not right yet…

Posted on October 27, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Commission, Learning, Portrait, Portrait of Clooney?, Trying to improve, Work in progress2 Comments

I’ve got his nose too long, his face needs to be slightly wider. The eyes need to be slightly further apart. I’ve got to work out if the mouth and chin are right. This is one of four possible commissions I’ve got. I’m not bad at portraits, but you have to be willing to change things and not stick with something if its not right.

I’ll leave it a few hours and then come back to it…..

Reading

Posted on October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Books, Creative writing, Learning, Library, Life, Reading, redundancy, Short storyLeave a comment

He never stopped reading. Even when the toast was burning, or when the kettle boiled. He would sit reading the cereal packet when he was a child, and still did it as an adult.

When the letter came he read it. Then ripped it in half and put it in the bin.

Off to work, silence, cataloguing, putting books back in place. Following the system of the books, the shelves. A to Z, Abracadabra to Zebra.

Enjoyment, organisation, learning. It was fun to him. He’d been there years. He had skills. He knew where the book was that someone would ask for. He knew what he was doing…..

End of day. Home again. He picked up the letter out of the bin..

“Redundancy notice. Head Librarian”.

He looked at the books on the walls of his house. He began to rearrange them.

New tablet

Posted on October 21, 2019October 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Drawing, Fun, Learning, One inch challenge, Pen and ink, TabletLeave a comment

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This isn’t the tablet but a drawing of the screen. I installed lots of software today. What a mess! I have different passwords for each app. It confused me! Had to reset some. I wanted to do lots of stuff today but I’ve spent four hours just learning how to use it.

Anyway the photo is for day 21 of the 1″ inch challenge for October.

Choir practice

Posted on October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Choir, Enjoyment, Fun, Learning, Melodion, Music, Song bookLeave a comment

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The choirs I’m inlearn mainly by repetition. We usually have the choir leader teaching us a line at a time. Some songs have simple repetitions, others have verses and choruses. We can sing in unison or are split into high, low and middle parts. We are kept in tune either with a melodion or a guitar. I actually find it harder to sing along with a guitar because it can be drowned out by our singing.

A new choir member asked how we can just start singing a song that we have never seen BEFORE. When that happens it’s usually because we have sung it in the past and it’s part of our old repertoire? Our song book is extensive and covers old and new songs and many languages including African songs, European and Indian.

I think joining a choir is one of the best things I have ever done.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Learning